Monday, June 06, 2016

For a while now, it's seemed clear that Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server as secretary of state was an irresponsible, arrogant violation of security and public-transparency rules. The Washington Post has now gotten its hands on a copy of the State Department inspector general's report about the controversy, which makes that assessment official:

The State Department’s independent watchdog has issued a highly critical analysis of Hillary Clinton’s email practices while running the department, concluding that she failed to seek legal approval for her use of a private email server and that department staff would not have given its blessing because of the “security risks in doing so.”

The inspector general, in a long awaited review obtained Wednesday by The Washington Post in advance of its publication, found that Clinton’s use of private email for public business was “not an appropriate method” of preserving documents and that her practices failed to comply with department policies meant to ensure that federal record laws are followed.

This is obviously on some level bad for Clinton's presidential campaign, and it's obviously also bad for anyone who wants their public officials not to behave like paranoid, secretive dopes. But as the Post notes, it's also probably good for Clinton that the report—which doesn't allege any illegal activity and also criticizes the email practices of previous State Department honchos like Colin Powell—was released now rather, than, like, Nov. 1. Meanwhile there's still no indication that the FBI's parallel investigation into whether Clinton's handling of classified material constituted criminal negligence has turned up anything damaging. At this point it doesn't look like Clinton's use of the private server, however ill-advised, is going to sink her campaign. At the same time, it probably has contributed to the fact that two-thirds of registered voters find her untrustworthy. Isn't 2016 great?